Citadel of Fire (The Ronin Saga Book 2)

by Matthew Wolf

  In the rare stories that told of Kail’s heroism, painting him in an uncommon, favored light, they had blamed his darkness upon the death of those he loved. How much had been laid upon the legend? And worse yet, how much would be burdened upon him? Could he stand the weight of what was to come? He took a deep breath, stopping his trailing questions.

  “We can only follow the path before us, until another is revealed.”

  It was Reaver Ethelwin’s words from earlier.

  Mura would say much the same. “Find answers first, think about the questions later.” Gray focused his thoughts, knowing what he had to do. He needed to know what being a Ronin meant, and the book would tell him.

  “Well, you’re still alive,” Zane declared, pulling Gray from his reflections. The fiery man popped a plump berry into his mouth. Then he laughed. “So it seems Arbiters aren’t the feared legends the stories say they are. Truth be told, I’m almost a little disappointed.” He laughed again with a shake of his head as Gray grabbed another berry. “After all I heard, they almost sounded like the dreaded Ronin.”

  Gray choked on the berry.

  “You all right?” Zane asked, slapping him on the back.

  He coughed, clearing his throat. Nearby, two one-stripe male Reavers passed by, talking in hushed tones, moving through the enclosed yard with several servants trailing them. It reminded Gray. “Did you see the Reaver on the stairs?”

  Zane grabbed his rusted dagger and began shaving a gnarled root, the black shavings falling to the grass, revealing bright pink pulp. Is everything in Farhaven so strange looking? Gray wondered. “The one that looked like the walking dead? I saw him,” Zane said offhandedly. “He doesn’t talk. Reaver Dimitri. Another told me he lost his brother saving Ezrah.”

  Gray looked ahead as the boughs swished from a breeze. “We paid a steep price to save Ezrah.”

  “Great things are not done without sacrifice,” Zane said.

  “Wise words,” he replied, lifting a brow.

  “Not mine,” the man said. “Another I once considered as close as blood. Father.”

  Gray nodded, and vowed to remember the sacrifices. Again, his throat clenched thinking of Victasys.

  Zane spoke. “I can understand his pain. If I ever lost Hannah…” Rage wormed its way into his voice. He stabbed his dagger into a fuzzy, bulbous piece of fruit.

  Hannah. That made Gray think of Ayva and Darius. How long had it been? They were all right, weren’t they? Faye would see them safe. But they should have saved Hannah by now, shouldn’t they? He saw Zane’s concerned features, the angst growing on his tanned face. He gripped the man’s tense arm. Zane looked to him, and Gray had trouble not flinching.

  “Hannah is alive,” Gray said firmly.

  The man’s expression didn’t shift. “How do you know?”

  “Because I believe in them,” he said with equal fervor, “Darius and Ayva will not fail.”

  Slowly, Zane’s gruff visage broke, and he nodded.

  Gray breathed a hidden sigh. He was glad to see the man finally relax, if only a little. “We will just have to wait until they show up. But it won’t be long,” he added. “Meira has sent out others to search for them, and she positioned sentries nearby Faye’s house. There’s nothing to be done for it now but trust them and wait. They will return.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “But waiting? I’ve never been known as the patient type.”

  Gray suddenly rose and turned to Zane who was biting into a fruit, juice spilling around his mouth. The man looked up as Gray unsheathed Morrowil and pointed it at him.

  “What’s this?” Zane asked, unfazed.

  Gray smirked. “Care for a duel?”

  “What’s a duel?”

  “You know, a duel. It’s like practice fighting.”

  Zane scratched his head. “What’s the pointing of fighting if it’s not for life or death?”

  “My mind finds reprieve from troubled thoughts when I’m working the forms. A reprieve I think we both could use.” Zane’s mouth twisted, listening attentively. “Not to mention, it seems inevitable that a war is coming. If so, there are men like Jian that we will have to fight. I think it’s time we practice our skills so we are not dwarfed in power.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Zane snapped.

  “Do not deny the truth. You saw Jian’s strength as well as me.”

  “The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” the fiery man retorted sharply.

  Gray lifted a brow. “Then you think you can take him?”

  Zane looked uncertain. “Perhaps training is not entirely unwise.”

  “Then it’s a deal. I’ll teach you everything I know,” Gray said excitedly, “and you teach me all you know. Let’s train to be ready for whatever comes.” He stuck out his hand, and Zane looked at it hesitantly. “Then again, you can just mope about and grow fat until the others show up. It’s your choice.”

  After a long moment, Zane gruffly wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. Tossing the bowl of fruit on the ground, he rose, showing his intimidating stature. He was not exactly tall, but he was far more muscled than Gray. He rolled his heavy shoulders in a stretch and his thin lips curved, a fire in his eyes. “Everything you know? Sounds fun. That should take a good few minutes. But I suppose training is better than doing nothing, and I could use a small stretch, which is what this sounds like.”

  Gray smiled and gripped Morrowil tighter. As he opened his mouth to reply, Zane unsheathed his blade, roaring and attacking him more fiercely than a flame roared to life.

  Seeking Stillness

  SIFTING THROUGH THE STREETS LIKE A shadow had been Gray’s first test. He had only failed once, when he was spotted by guards in a restricted district of Farbs but had escaped with Zane’s help. The key, the fiery man had taught him, was believing you didn’t exist, which seemed like a sad, strange notion, yet as Gray sat, breathing in the darkness, becoming one with it, he realized Zane was right. Wary Farbian guards passed him a breath away, as if he were no more than a wisp of wind. Zane taught him other tools of stealth as well: how to skulk from toe-to-heel in order to move in utter silence, which shadows were darkest, and how reflections gave one away. The act of hiding was one that Gray thought he would have grown tired of, but learning from Zane was thrilling. The man made it practical, to the point that, when they finished, Gray felt as if he could hide in plain sight. When they were nearly caught by a pair of guards who seemed to be searching for something—for them, Gray knew—they had decided to confine their training to the safety of The Tranquil House.

  Once there, the man had taught him how to withstand pain, using a boiling cauldron as a test. Attempted, that is. Gray had failed that. The wind had created a thin buffer between him and the molten metal handles every try. But as always, his power had only come out of need.

  After that, Gray taught Zane how to work the forms. He had taken to them quickly, almost inhumanely so. It was late in the day now on the second day of their training. The last precious minutes of dusk dwindled fast, and the sky was overtaken by deeper night as Gray faced off with Zane in the courtyard of The Tranquil House.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Zane called again, standing with his head cocked to one side, as if curious. His blade rested casually in the verdant grass. The pose seemed somehow familiar, as if he’d seen it before, long ago.

  Shaking it off, Gray set his stance. That brazen attitude was beginning to wear on him. Worst of all, he knew it wasn’t arrogance. Zane was simply confident and as blunt as a hammer—it was all the more infuriating. And he had every right to be confident. The man was a weapon. Then I will be a weapon as well. Setting his jaw, Gray attacked again. Morrowil whistled through the dry air. Devari forms seemed to sift back, slowly but surely.

  Fisher in the Shallows meets—

  “Fisher in the shallows, eh?” the man called as he easily parried the sweeping strikes and slashed at Gray’s flank. Gray snarled and sidestepped. Dancing Crane. He leapt back. Zane
took the opening, lunging forward but Gray had baited it, and his sword cut upwards. Still, Zane was too quick. He smacked Morrowil aside with the flat of his hand and landed his sword a breath away from Gray’s throat.

  “That’s amazing. Your hand… Simply slapping the blade hurt my grip. How did you do that?” Gray said, rubbing his tingling palms.

  “Simple. I’ll show you,” Zane said flatly, and he instructed him, building up speed. Finally, Gray smacked Zane’s blade. The man grimaced and breathed through his teeth, massaging his hand. “You’re a quick learner.”

  “But not as quick as you,” he answered, truly impressed.

  Zane had taken to wearing black pants and a red vest, exposing his arms to the reddish setting sun. Had it really only been one day? Gray felt as if he’d grown stronger in one day than in years of training.

  Sounds of the night drifted into Gray’s awareness—a babbling brook, insects chirping in the bushes that clung to the walls, and birds singing in the trees. Gray knew many of the birds from Mura’s tutelage back in the Lost Woods; the warbles of thrushes, the trill of a nightingale. But there was another. Gray listened, finding peace in the ethereal flute-like call of a red-throated Brenhorn—a bird of Farhaven. It was becoming more like that; names, places, forms, it was all coming back, even quicker now.

  He took in The Tranquil House too.

  It was a three-storied building with many rooms and shuttered windows with vines that grew along the clay walls. The whole of it sat just off the way from the main thoroughfare. Aside from that, it was altogether common looking—a perfect hideout. It looked like any number of the dozens of buildings placed along the ordinary street.

  He looked up to the room where Ezrah was resting. He knew it had only been this morning he’d talked to the man, but it felt like an age ago. The Arbiter was standing by the window, looking out on Zane and Gray, his eye watchful, yet his face seemed grim, as if he was looking beyond them. Gray smiled and his grandfather returned the gesture, looking away once more.

  Despite the yard’s stillness, preparations seemed to be growing, reaching their peak. Men and women moved about constantly now, Reavers and Devari filling the house until it flowed over like a broken dam. Whispers hung in the air, swords at every hip…

  Whatever his grandfather was planning, it was big, and it was coming.

  “What’s this?” Zane asked abruptly.

  Looking back, he saw Zane was holding the book in his hand. The man had opened it, fingers grazing its pages as he bit into a juicy black fruit with his other. A flush of fear shot through Gray, but then he remembered Zane wouldn’t be able to read the book.

  “The Ronin, huh? Seth sounds kind of impressive.”

  Gray gawked. “What?!”

  Zane scratched his jaw with his fruit-filled hand. “‘Seth summons the fire within to conquer the soul of his sword.’”

  “You… can read that?”

  “Sure,” Zane said, distracted. His eyes narrowed. “This line, it seems different. ‘Fire’s strength is in its fury. Feed the fury and find your source.’” Zane seemed to concentrate. Anger swirled in his visage, growing. Suddenly, the fruit in the man’s hand burst into flames. He threw it to the ground, now a burnt black husk.

  “What’d you just do?”

  Zane shrugged. “I don’t know. I just saw a flame in my mind and then that happened… ” He eyed his hand, then shook his head, looking up. “Gray? What’s the look for? Looks like you’ve seen a ghost come to life.”

  Gray’s mind stuttered. A flame in his mind… Just like Darius, a leaf in his mind. “You…” he began, his mind churned, and then he shook his head at last, “It’s nothing. Give it here. You’re going to get it all dirty.”

  Zane snorted, handing the book over. “Whatever you say.”

  A bell rung, announcing dinner, and several boys and girls—children of the servants of the House who had come to watch them—turned and ran towards the building, squealing as they played a game Zane had called ice tag. Kirin remembered the game distantly.

  Zane sheathed his blade sharply, heading to The Tranquil House.

  “Where are you going?” Gray asked.

  “I’m hungry,” he said, looking back. “We’ve been training for hours on end. Some food and rest will do us good.”

  “I cannot eat, not yet. There is a war coming, Zane, and we need to be ready.”

  “And we will be, but for now, I’m tired and hungry. You can keep training, Gray, but for today, I’m done.” His voice was fire. Not a raging inferno, just a slow burning heat that Gray couldn’t argue with. With that, Zane left him standing alone in the quiet courtyard.

  With a sigh, Gray moved to the stone wall and sat. The book lay nearby. Rain began to fall, softly, and he sheltered the book with his threadbare cloak, and saw the symbol of wind once again. It reminded him of his broken nexus. At the same time, in the distance he saw glimpses of the Citadel’s black spires, waiting.

  Where was his power? With it, he knew he might be able to save the Citadel, but without it, though he had grown stronger, he was still even weaker than Zane. And he wanted to be strong. Yet there was no answer, just the quiet stillness of the night and the pattering of rain on the nearby stones, leaves, roof tiles, and the swish of a night breeze. The moon above hung sullenly, watching him like a pale, glowing eye.

  The book felt oddly warm in his hands. And the words Zane had read resonated through his mind. He spoke aloud: “Fire’s strength is in its fury. Feed the fury and find your source.”

  The book.

  It was an instruction manual.

  Hastily and eagerly, Gray peeled back the book’s cover. It seemed to open to the proper page as if by magic. On the top of the page was a picture of the symbol of wind and a rough sketch of a creature that looked to be made of flowing wind save for a pair of luminous white horns. He read the words beneath:

  Wind.

  It is the strongest known element in our world. We do not think of it, but always we are immersed in it. It is everywhere, and it is nowhere. It is the fierce gales of a wrathful hurricane, or a subtle, cooling breeze. It is a contradiction, inexplicable and hard to define, but undeniable in its sheer potency. To wield wind, Kail once spoke to me words that I have never forgotten:

  ‘I must be everything and nothing. Like the wind upon the heights, I find my power in anger and serenity.’

  Gray closed the book, snapping the connection. He had seen Kail’s face as he read the words—his long, loose, graying hair framing that hard face and those burning scarlet eyes. Suddenly it made sense what the man held in that gaze.

  Anger and serenity.

  Flash.

  Something pulsed inside Gray’s head.

  Anger and serenity… Peace and rage… Like the wind upon the heights.

  The words throbbed through his core, beating like a drum inside his chest.

  And in the center, he found stillness.

  Gray saw a golden door waiting in his mind. His heart thrummed in anticipation. He reached out, hastily, serenity slipping. The door wavered. Releasing a breath, holding tranquility and burning anger hand in hand, Gray pushed forward.

  The door opened, radiant golden light spilling forth.

  He saw the nexus, brighter than ever.

  It rotated, whole and flawless once more.

  Suddenly, Gray realized the rain no longer fell on him, but he still heard its sound, though faintly, as if from behind a windowpane. He felt warmth on his skin and he opened his eyes. All around him, shielding him from the rain and wind, was a sphere of flowing gold.

  And Gray knew—his power had returned.

  * * *

  Gray burst into Zane’s room. Despite the dim light, his eyes adjusted, picking out the room’s features: a white cot, a bedside table, and an unlit lantern upon the wall. There on the small white cot lay Zane—though now he was simply a mass of flailed limbs, as if he had wrestled with his blanket and lost.

  He lit a nearby lantern, and
Zane leapt up, sword ringing. Its tip trembled before Gray’s neck—not in fear, but in anger. The man’s expression was all fire, and in that moment, Gray saw the thief in the man’s eyes, the one clinging to life in a world surrounded by darkness. Such hardness.

  His mood unfettered, Gray ignored the sword. With one hand, he tossed Zane a globular black fruit, shaved to its pink center—it was called Yundar Melon he had discovered, Zane’s favorite but far too bitter for his tastes. “Wake up,” Gray said, unable to contain his grin.

  “What is it? Is Hannah back?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  Gray shook his head softly. “Not yet. Now, are you ready?”

  Zane groaned, flopping back into the bed and tugging his sheets around him into a tight cocoon. “What are you doing? It’s still night,” he moaned. “Go away. We’ll train tomorrow.”

  Gray said nothing but merely waited, feeling anticipation rise.

  Zane feigned sleeping for another few moments than grumbled into his pillow. “I can feel your smug smile on my back, Gray.” He rolled back over, eyeing him with his unnerving copper-colored eyes. “What’s with that look? So eager for another beating?”

  Letting the smile linger, Gray closed his eyes. He reached inside, finding the line between rage and serenity. The balance of stillness. The nexus flickered, not as strong as he’d wished, but he did not force it. A thread of wind wormed its way into the cot, gripping the man’s covers. Gray yanked. The sheets flew into the air, pulling their load. Zane cried out as he fell onto the floor with a hard thump.

  “We’ve only just begun,” Gray announced, and left behind his speechless friend. Hiding the growing smirk, he moved into the dark hall and towards their training area.

  * * *

  Outside, Gray sat in darkness.

  He breathed it in, enjoying the quiet. But still his anger beat a low hum, waiting to be used. And between that line, he knew his nexus waited. He had lit a dozen torches and stuck them into the ground in a circle, creating a small bubble of light. Morrowil sat in his hand, its smooth handle surprisingly tacky to the touch as usual. Above, a waxy yellow moon hung amid a starry sky.